Prodigal Island

The British naval sloop Milford, Vice Admiral Edward Radcliffe Garth Russell Evans commanding, hove to in the bleak South Atlantic one day last week to ride out a 70 m.p.h. storm. Brave Admiral Evans could not have found a lonelier spot. Full 2,000 mi. northeast lay Bechuanaland where last September he did his duty as a Briton and an officer in banishing a South African chief who had punished a white man (TIME, Sept. 25 et seq.). Four thousand miles farther on was Britain. Three thousand miles to the south was the South Pole where he had been in 1912 with Captain Scott. In ordinary weather the seas of the South Atlantic, with thousands of miles of unbroken run behind them, rear up like mountain ridges. But last week's storm unsettled the stomachs of all but the oldest seamen and Admiral Evans.

The cold-eyed, square-jawed Admiral had a job to do. Somewhere to the south lay barren and uninhabited Bouvet Island, discovered in 1739 and later ''lost'' by the chartmakers. Several years ago Norway and Britain fell to arguing over who owned it. Norway won. But then someone discovered that they had been talking about two different islands. The Admiralty told Vice Admiral Evans to find Bouvet. As soon as the wind fell last week, Admiral Evans pushed on south. Two days later the radio station at Simonstown, South Africa, caught a laconic message: "Have found Bouvet. Evans."

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